


Grow Proud

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Final Fantasy XIV
Genre: Au Ra (Final Fantasy XIV), Gen, Xaela
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-26 21:08:28
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 750
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14410602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Ganzorig once was a good man, a warrior. Now he's just a drunk trying to raise a kid.





	Grow Proud

Ganzorig had once been a brave, hard man. He had served clan Tumet with honor, distinguished himself in battle, defended his people with fierce grit and determination.

No more was he that man. Sarnai had taken that with her when she passed on; his rose had been the light in his world, the force that drove him to greatness. With her death, he withdrew, the world darker, unimportant. It was only the baby that kept him alive most days, the chubby toddler, the dreamy-eyed child. He kept himself alive to watch over the boy, who the other children called “Rao”. In time, he would have to see him tied to the tree.

In time, he would have to see him named, take his place as a man in the tribe.

Perhaps then he would take the big rest. Chase his rambling rose…

Early mornings were best, or perhaps simply easiest. Early mornings reminded him of nothing, for he had never before been much of an early riser. Sarnai had been, had needed to be, and while it ached now to realize how many hours he had missed with his wife simply by sleeping in, it was a hollow ache. An ache nothing filled, not the Arkhi vodka he drank in such quantity and not the child who looked so like his mother.

“Stand straighter,” he’d say, watching the little boy, the one the children called Rao but who he would have to name some day, name for real. This child, not tall but already stringy with muscle and trembling with pent-up strength, would straighten his spine, push out his chest, and square his shoulders, holding his bow at the ready.

“It is a bow, not a beast you must strangle,” he would say, and the child, all eagerness to please and bright energy, would release a shaky breath and let up on the bow. He’d raise the bow beautifully, solemnly, and reach for an arrow as if he were born with a quiver on his back.

“Square your stance,” he would say, and as the sun rose, bathing the boy in golden, sweet light, he would do as he was told; he would follow every direction, this golden boy, and never mind that his father and trainer was drinking all the while. For hours he would drill the child; bow, sword, survival and life, becoming more exhausted as the sun churned overhead and his jar of Arkhi drained, the boy patient and obedient.

Finally, the sun well up and his jar long empty, dizzy and slurring, he would call a halt. “Take me home,” he’d say, and the boy, barefoot and sweaty and by now eager to get away, back to the dirty, rough, strange world that only the children knew, would help him stand and together they would walk, the boy’s arm about his waist back home to the tent. There the boy would cook him a simple meal, qurut and mutton, making sure that he ate before taking any himself.

Reclining back into his cushions, ready to sleep at last, there is one last ritual, which the boy tolerates but shows little interest in reciprocating. He understands – he is a poor excuse for a father. Still, the boy stands before him and he takes those small, calloused hands in his own kissing first the right palm, then the left. “You are my son,” he says, “my son and my sun. I see you grow strong, and I love you more each day.”

The boy nods, colouring under his scales, the darkening of his skin making his freckles seem to glow, just as Sarnai’s had. He pulls the boy in and hugs him, trying and failing not to notice the way the child recoils for his alcohol-soured breath.

Ganzorig had once been a brave, hard man. He had served clan Tumet with honor, distinguished himself in battle, defended his people with fierce grit and determination. He knows now, watching his boy run from the tent in obvious relief, radiating freedom as only a child released from his lessons can, that he will never again be that man. He is tired now, tired and thirsty, a used-up alcoholic with only the drive to see his child into manhood to keep him from giving in to the darkness that threatens.

“I will see you grow strong, Golden Boy,” he says to himself, fishing beside his bed for the half-drank Arkhi jar he knows is there. “I will see you grow proud.”


End file.
